Three anniversaries

On May 10, 1929, 24-year-old Elizabeth Palumbo submitted to an abortion, evidently perpetrated by Dr. Amante (or Amenti) Rongetti. She was taken to West End Hospital afterward, and she died there on May 23. Rongetti was held by the coroner on June 12. On June 20, he was acquitted. I was amazed to see Rongetti tied up in this case, because only the previous year he had been sentenced to die in the electric chair for the abortion death of Loretta Enders. Rongetti's attorney clearly had been successful in his bid for a new trial. And Rongetti was freed to kill again. So much for the theory that criminalization necessarily locked quacks away. We need to find and close the loopholes so that butchers like Rongettti stay locked away.

Life Dynamics lists 29-year-old Rhonda Ruggiero on their "Blackmun Wallsafe and legal abortions. According to the information LDI put together, Rhonda underwent an abortion in May of 1982. She suddenly died of an abortion-related pulmonary embolism on May 23. An embolism is a flukey thing that can kill regardless of the doctor's skill, so Rhonda probably would have died regardless of whether abortion was legal or not.

Documents indicate that Josefina Garcia, age 37, mother of 2, died after abortion at a Family Planning Associates Medical Group (FPA) facility. Josefina's survivors filed suit against FPA owner Edward Campbell Allred, and 5 other doctors: Kenneth Wright, Leslie S. Orleans, Earl Baxter, Soon Sohn, and Thomas Grubbs. The family said that staff failed to determine that Josefina had an ectopic pregnancy before proceeding with a routine safe and legal abortion procedure by D&C on May 23, 1985. After her abortion, Josefina was left unattended in a recovery room, where she hemorrhaged. She died the day of her abortion. Regardless of whether or not abortion is legal, an ectopic pregnancy is something any abortionist should have diagnosed, if not before the abortion, then certainly after the abortion was completed and there were not pieces of fetus removed. Either way, there was little excuse for failing to detect the ectopic pregnancy. Whether Josefina lived or died would have depended on the state of medicine at the time, and the ordinary skills of doctors who were not abortionists.